


Dark, Darker Yet Darker

by knightnliege



Category: Deltarune (Video Game), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23677159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightnliege/pseuds/knightnliege
Summary: Ralsei is the loneliest prince in the underground, no friends, family, or subjects to speak of. He spends most of his time staring at the door, waiting for people to give him a purpose of involvement, but so far, that day has yet to come.However, one day he decides to go for a stroll in the woods; which doesn't turn out very well for him.Soon after the new, horrifying discovery of what may lay out there, dormant for him; he struggles with the possibility that he may not have been what he may have believed himself to be.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	1. dark, darker yet darker

**Author's Note:**

> hello! so, this is my first time writing any kind of deltarune literature; (i’m not used to writing fan fiction ahah) but i like to dabble in horror, and i really hope you guys enjoy this dumb lil story I wrote ehehe.  
> this was pretty fun to write, so if you want more of this lemme know!  
> (after uploading this to the website, it became apparent to me that it cannot transfer wingdings into the text. if you wish to get the view with wingdings, which is preferable to me, here's a link to where you would be able to find it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Deltarune/comments/frka7m/dark_darker_yet_darker/ )  
> -  
> anyways, the tldr is basically: ralsei finds a hidden door in the woods, it doesn’t end well for anyone.  
> 

Ralsei was lonely, to say the least. He'd grown up in a kingdom of admiration; full of followers for the first few years of his rather young life. He distantly remembered running through the steeple with other children, laughing and playing with people he didn't just refer to as his subjects, but his friends as well. Sometimes, he'd even bake cakes for the lot of them.

But, one day, it all came crashing down; and before he knew it, he was the sole member of his kingdom; the loneliest dark prince in the world.

However, he did have one hope; one last thing to cling to. The prophecy, that a Hero, a Monster, and a Dark Prince (himself, he believed); who'd destroy the fountain and bring light to the world; and oh, how he couldn't wait to be a part of it.

So, he waited, and waited, and waited. Sometimes he'd take strolls along the barren kingdom, tending to the plants and cleaning windows, baking cakes in empty bakeries; just needed to preoccupy his time doing something.

So, often, when he had nothing to do; he’d go on walks in the distant wilderness, beyond the lone cobblestone wall that bordered the last reaches of civilization; depicting that it once had been something more. Something great. The feeling of feet against grass that lightly pecked against the bottom of his feet when he stepped; and the tree branches that would softly wisp against his dark cloak. Whether it be daytime, afternoon, or night; it felt good to fill his lungs with fresh air. To see the rose-tinted skies shine overhead, bleating out blotches of orange and yellow; sometimes even purple. It was as if a child was handed a blank canvas, assigned to doodle their dreams with just a finger and some watercolors.  
And after that, it might’ve been even better. Once the sun would set, thousands and thousands of stars would emerge from the onslaught void in the sky; glittering and reflecting across the  
landscape.

It was his happy place, his own little pinprick on the map of their shaded world. When he felt lonely, he’d go there and befriend the shattered balls of light above. They’d reciprocate and crash into the beautiful sparks of day. It had been incorporated into his nightly routine.

So, it wouldn’t be that long until he found himself back in the woods again, gazing through the gaps in the leafy ceiling. He began to pace in the dreary shadows of the trees, looking up at the sky, zoning his vision in towards the stars. For endless moments, everything was the same as usual, beautiful, slow, sleepy. He wanted to blanket himself into the moonlight.  
He began to hum quietly to himself, the buzz of the vibrato in his throat tickling the inside of his mouth and down to the back of his ears. He upcame and began to pass the large, thick cobblestone wall, lifting a hand to gently drag his fingers over the stones that made up the wall; which had been smoothed down from the weathering of rain and wind. He felt the little bumps and ridges in the cobblestone began to wear down against his claws, but didn’t mind too much.

He eventually turned his head to look away from the wall, facing the ceiling of leaves and twig to catch little glimpses of the stars amongst the gaps in the treetops. The sun had seemingly already set, though Ralsei could still catch small glimpses of fading purple to the east of eyeshot. He continued to mindlessly drag his fingers against the wall, until something changed. The texture of the wall had completely changed from rough stone to a smooth, polished surface. He flinched slightly and stopped all movement at the sudden change, turning his body to stand in full view of the door that had formed in the middle of the wall. He narrowed his gaze, his pupils examining the dark swirls of age in the material of the wooden door. He pressed a hand to the door, dipping his fingers and pushing against the ridges of the stiff object, curious about when it had appeared.

He thought he knew every inch of the woods, to see something new was completely perplexing. Maybe he didn’t know the environment here as well as he believed. His gaze lowered to meet the sight of a golden, polished doorknob. It looked unused, too fancy and valued for somewhere as rugged as the wilderness outside his kingdom. He rested his hands against it, getting a feel for it in his shadowed, fuzzy palm. I was so smooth, almost weighty. He squeezed it tightly, and without even thinking, turned it and pushed it open.

The entire view in front of him, through the door frame, was completely dark. There was something about this absence of light that felt wrong. It wasn’t just light that had been lost, it felt as if everything else that might have existed inside was completely empty too. It was hollow, barren, dead.

He was probably just getting ahead of himself. It was just a dark room, there was probably some sort of light switch on the inside. He tentatively stepped one foot into the room, and a chill ran up that leg, through his soft fur, into his skin. He shuddered, goosebumps beginning to rise over his body. The room wasn’t just dark, but it was cold. Bone chillingly cold.  
He pushed himself a little further into the room, enough to where his body was out of the wilderness, and completely inside. The ground beneath his feet was solid and loud, enough to where he could hear the soft slapping of his feet against the slick, glossy floor. He turned around slightly to see the light of the moon and stars from outside reflect in the tiny mirrored floor below. He let out a shudder of a sigh, before stepping away to try and locate the switch.

He stepped away cautiously from the door, trying to branch out and locate the nearest wall, worried as he was unable to locate one no matter how far left or right he walked. He slowly began to feel more and more unsettled as he rocked his body back and forth between where he believed walls should have been. His heart rate began to steadily increase in his chest, and he turned back towards where he had come from; catching sight of the door slowly beginning to close.

His eyes widened, and he bolted back towards the closing door, his heart starting to pound in his chest. He heard the sound of the door creaking on its hinges, which only assisted in the acceleration of his heart rate. However, as soon as it looked like he might reach the door in time, it shut a few inches away from his face, leaving him inside, buried deep in the dark.  
“Help!” He yelled out, his voice hitching slightly as he rammed his hands into the wooden door, the sound echoing inside of the thick darkness. “Please, someone! I’m trapped!” He continued to push and scream against the door, before giving up and into a fit of harsh, terrified breaths. He slid down against the cool wood of the door, which weirdly felt good on the hot, red flush of his cheeks. He closed his eyes, trying to cool himself out of the anxiety that had entered his heart; taking a few moments to swallow big, thick gulps of air into his lungs.

After a few moments, he let his eyes flicker open and gaze outwards, narrowing his eyes as something other than darkness filled his vision. Far, far away in the distance was the faint view of a very dim light source. Ralsei quickly became more alert, rising on his feet and pacing towards the source. Soon, as he came the slightest bit closer, he noticed a tall shadow outlined in the middle of the dim light, a long figure stretched out in a vertical sense. The dark prince exhaled in relief. There was someone else there, he wasn’t alone.

“Excuse me, Mister?” He called out, picking up his pace into a jog, his long cloak flailing behind him, the top of his robe falling off his hat as he came even closer to his destination, the long man coming more into view. “Sir, sir! Are you okay? Do you need help?” He questioned, very much relieved that he wasn’t alone in this. “Gosh, I’m so relieved. I thought I was completely alone,” he began to ramble to the figure as he came closer. “I was so scared! Do you know how to get out of here? Sorry, that was dumb, why would you want to stay in a place like this? I mean, unless you want to, in that case, I’m really sorry-” Ralsei was quickly cut off in a swallowed gasp when the man turned to face him.

The man was elongated in unrealistic proportions, his body drooping down and sloping to the side as if he was melted. His chest showed a mass of white, hollow and trembling from the sheer weight of breathing in the absence of nothing. His hands were wide and thin, a large hole gaged in the middle of each hand. This isn’t even to mention his face. A large oval with two hollow dark circles as eyes, his left one split halfway by the center, two large strikes of carve-markings splitting his eyes in halves down the center. His mouth was formed in a wicked grimace, like a distorted quarter moon tilted to the side.

Ralsei stepped back, his eyes wide with horror. He cupped his hands over his mouth in a shake, terrible kind of surprise.

The man’s face glistened and glitched in some kind of horror as it began to speak.

“My child, what are you doing here?” It gurgled, an indecipherable language to the prince spilling from the gaping hole in it’s face. It melted slightly, looking sullen and terrified.  
Ralsei just stared up at it, confusion and terror in his eyes. The thing seemed so sad. Was it in pain? “S-Sir?” He started, his small body beginning to tremble from the sheer fear he felt. “Are y-you okay?”

“No.” The man sputtered, lifting his arms to wrap them around his own torso. “N︎o︎,︎ n︎o︎,︎ n︎o︎!︎ t︎h︎i︎s︎ i︎s︎ a︎l︎l︎ w︎r︎o︎n︎g︎." It exclaimed in a bone-chilling sort of way, growing closer to the terrified prince. “No, you need to leave right now.”

Ralsei whimpered at the growing sight of the man, confused and filled to the brim with fear. “W-What?”

“You need to go.” Gurgled the man once again, beginning to expand and rise vertically over the boy. “You must go. Go!”

Ralsei gasped, scrambling to his feet and backing away from the elongated shadow of a man.

“Go. Go!” The thing began to scream, rising closer and closer towards Ralsei. “Go!”

Ralsei shrieked, turning around and running back towards where he remembered the door to have been. His body was throbbing with adrenaline, his soft black fur soaked with sweat. He heard the echoing of his feet against the flooring below him; which increased in speed as he carried his body away faster. He could hear the stalking of the man behind him as he seemingly gave chase.  
In the distance, he saw a crack of starlight as the door began to reopen. He raced faster and faster until he couldn’t even feel himself breathe, let alone his own exhaustion. He was closer, and closer, and closer.

“Go, go and never return to this place!”

Before he knew it, he could feel something pick him up, and fling him through the open door, which sourced a scream through Ralsei’s lips as he left the cold air of the hidden room, which faded into the mildew-soaked heat of the outside.

His body hit the soft, damp grass, causing scrapes against his calves and thighs, along with his face and hands. He brought himself upwards shakily on his hands and knees, spitting out mouthfuls of dirt and grass.

He flopped backwards onto his back, heaving breathlessly as he faced the night sky. The stars were blurry through Ralsei’s vision, and he inhaled sharp, terrified breaths as he began to catch the wind that had been knocked out of him. He brought himself up from a sitting position, almost hoping to catch another glimpse of where he had just been.  
But the door was gone, it was just a wall of cobblestone.


	2. inter-dimensional fatigue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ralsei has a dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, it’s lion and I’m back with part two of my incoming series; which I will hereby be referring as DDYD, until i find a better name of course.
> 
> sorry that this has taken quite a while to come out! I know a few of you have been waiting. this took long to come out because of the ending of my online classes, and mostly me coming out of a writer’s block; ahah.
> 
> quite a few of these events are inspired by some events in zarla-s’s handplates comic; such as asgore’s dream, and i actually learned about the finely wired concept of idf from them! give their comics a look if you’re interested.

“There you are!” Mused the prince, shifting in the creaky, half-rotted wooden chair that rested underneath him. He smiled politely at the vast space beyond; quietly viewing a figure unbeknownst to seemingly all of time or space. Though nothing quite met his eye, he lifted a hand and guided it towards the chair across from himself. Seemingly, it sat down.

Ralsei perked up excitedly, gesturing to the cake that sat in front of them, pristeenly set up on a polished china plate that resided underneath the fluffy treat. Two smaller replicas of the large plate sat before them, ones that they would eat the slices of served cake off of.

“I feel as if I haven’t seen you in quite some time.” Remarked the prince, one hand gathering in the direction of the neatly aligned silverware in front of him, the other cupped in interchanging gestures as he remarked towards the being in front of him. “But I know you’re there, I guess. I can reconcile.” He babbled, feeling as if the words flowing from his mouth remained that of a distant passage, as if his own words weren’t entirely his own. He knew they were, but part of it felt like he was cold reading, or reciting. No meaning behind his words except conscious thought.

“Do you mean to condescend when you appear? I wouldn’t guess so, it’s just, you come upon me so often, I feel like I can guarantee that you are trying to find me.” The prince grew bashful for a moment, his eyes stepping down to the prettily patterned table in front of him. He caught wind of it for a second, however, the sheet sure didn’t. It seemed to be wavering, softly blowing as if it were caught in a breeze, but it wasn’t. There wasn’t any wind to speak of.  
He glanced back up to the figure, who’s invisible presence melted slightly, cocking. It was relishing in the reality of its own situation, a questionable one at best. It was something that felt trapped, yet joyous. Clearly, it was losing some sort of battle, but not with itself, or with Ralsei; but something from beyond.

This in itself was confusing. Where had that thought come from? Was it even real, did it even happen? Was it conscious? Probably not.  
Ralsei retaliated his focus back to the creature, quaking his head at the question. He shook his head, a little smile wiping over his face. “Dreams? No, I really haven’t been having any sort of dreams lately. At least if I have, I don’t remember them.” He hummed, reaching towards the nice stack of fluffily iced cake to cut himself a slice. He let the fluffy think plop onto the small plate in front of him, before settling his happy expression into a more neutral one. 

“Well, I mean, I do dream.” He mumbled, shrugging his shoulders slightly, before glancing back up to the figure. “But I think imagining would be a better word for it. I just like to think about the prophecy.” He glanced back up to the figure, who seemed to dote on a string of confusion. The dark prince knit his brow.

“Do you not know the prophecy?” A beat. “Oh, okay, I understand.” A soft silence fell, and then a soft nod of understanding from the prince. “I see, well, I just keep awaiting the lighteners. They’re the ones who want to save the world; well, I want to too, that’s why I’m also there, in the prophecy. Yeah! A prince from the dark. That’s me!” Ralsei beamed, his face lighting up like a plethora of shooting stars, or the sparks of fireworks in the dark. But, as both of those factors eventually fall with time, so did his expression. His eyes trained the invisible force, a nearly sullen expression, one of a thickly almost-embarrassment, or maybe even pity.  
But why? He’d just confessed a dream, a secret. Not that he had ever had a reason to be ashamed of it, but based on not the features, the force, did he? Why was he being conveyed, expressed in that manner?

A fork was pressed into an individual slice of cake, worked around and twisted in the fluffy texture. Ralsei drew his lips into a line with concern. It had felt as if an awkward silence had fallen over the room.

“Um,” The Dark Prince started, hesitance clear in his throat. “Is everything okay?” He phrased quietly, hoping the collapse of their conversation hadn't been his own doing. What could he have possibly said to have caused this? What had he done wrong?  
The figure’s gaze, invisible and blank, untitled the fork from the cake in an almost unappreciating sense. The ambiance went cold, and it began to stand from the seat. Ralsei stared upwards at the vastness of nothing, not even sure what to make of it. He wanted to move to follow, but the indecisiveness caused him to still be in a seating position. He opened his mouth softly, before shutting it. It was only until the being began to walk away from the table that Ralsei stood up to speak and move.

“Wait, I’m sorry!” Ralsei spoke softly, moving away from the table, his bare feet stepping over wooden flooring, grass, and pebbles; a concoction that didn’t entirely make sense, but definitely existed. He began to quickly walk towards the thing, reaching his hands out as if to embrace his own apology. “What did I do? Did I say something wrong? Did I hurt your feelings?” Ralsei began to ramble aloud, his body tensing and eyes widening with concern. It felt like whenever he made an attempt to move closer, the farther he felt himself drift away from the being in front of him. It was as if something was pulling him away, far, far away. 

His emote of worry soon morphed into fear, and he clenched his own arms around himself, his vision feeling as if it was beginning to tunnel; the light shining through the leafy canopy of the room lunging further away, leaving only a slow fading sphere of vision as he was beginning to be abandoned in the darkness. 

And soon enough, he was alone. Floating in an endless sea of the abyss. He let out a shudder of a breath, seeing the heat of the breath he released come up in a fog around him. The darkness and the coldness of the environment felt strange, almost familiar. He kept himself curled up into a ball, his arms tightly squeezing around his legs, and his face pressed into his knees; a fetal position. He felt weighty, as if gravity was beginning to return to the lower half of his body; his legs and toes.

He hesitantly unwrapped his arms around his legs, letting his body slowly extend to its full height. He kept himself tense, and cringed slightly as he felt the bottom of his feet hit the chilly linoleum floor underneath him. He stared around himself, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the vastness of the room that surrounded him, but it felt as if his eyes were unable to do so. He extended his arms out lengthwise, trying to feel around for a door, or light switch, or any sort of walls at all. He was met with nothing. It felt strange, and filled him with a sort of deja-vu that he couldn’t quite place. But how couldn’t he? It was so very familiar.  
Ralsei paced for a moment, before stopping in his tracks. The feeling of hot, almost wet breath danced on the back of his neck, as if only a few inches away from his fur.  
“VESSEL.” Boomed a loud voice from behind, which caused the darkener to let out a choked breath and grip the back of his neck, falling forward onto his knees. He scurried to turn over himself, staring up at where he’d been vocalized from; as if he were prey being cornered by a predator. 

He cupped his hands over his mouth in horror at what stood before him. There wasn’t much to see in the dark, and the thing was coherent, but also not. It was as if someone had grabbed some white chalk and made the faint outline of a man standing above the boy, the white line seeming to bend and move with every action it made. Two horns stretched and branched off from above it’s head, like a deer’s; and as the face of the thing came closer to Ralsei, he could see that the face of that was also similar. Like a deer’s. Ralsei thinned his lips in fear, separating them to phrase some sort of question. “Wh.. what?” He whispered, his eyes wide as he stared up at the almost-horrific creature.

The creature loomed downwards, its lips stretching out to reveal gnarled, rotted teeth, which were almost human to be inside the mouth of a deer; a breath caught in Ralsei’s throat, and he felt lightheaded just looking at it.  
“WHO DO YOU BELIEVE YOURSELF TO BE?”  
What a strange question to hear, it seemed to be like nothing Ralsei was expecting to come out of the mouth of something so horrific. Now that he had the ability to focus on the voice of the thing, how it sounded utterly horrendous. Nothing screechy, like nails on a chalkboard, but a voice so deep and looming that he felt as if it could shatter his own core. The vibrations of it were low, like scraping at the bottom of someone’s vocal cords with a violin bow to see what sound would come out.

But the question itself was a strange one to answer, and he couldn’t exactly figure out what it meant. He stared deeply into the hollow gaping sockets of the creature, not even knowing if he would feel safe with the option of asking it to clarify. The creature didn’t seem to be in a rush, it’s existence seemed to pour out a lowly sense of patience; which was tolerable, almost.  
“I, um.” Ralsei sputtered, not sure how to phrase a response. He glanced towards the floor, trying to think. Maybe an introduction? He could just spur out the introduction he had prepared for when he met the lighteners and joined their journey! Maybe the thing would even be impressed.

The dark prince puffed out his chest, making slow, deliberate attempts to calm himself. After a few shaking breaths, he let his bottom lip fall open to reply. “I’m Ralsei, the Prince from the Dark!” He let his voice boom and echo in the room, the ambiance of his own voice flooding and bending around endless walls. After a few moments of ceaseless echoing, the room fell silent. The creature stared at him, not moving or blinking, the only audible sound being the hot, moist breaths coming from the husk of a creature in front of him. Ralsei could only imagine that it was unimpressed, even though he couldn’t tell what it was trying to emote at all.

Ralsei didn’t know what to do, and he let his mouth fall open, as if to fill the void of the room with mindless babbling, before he was cut off by a soft noise. It slowly began to increase, and the prince began to snap his gaze around to try and locate it, before he settled on the creature's face. Its jaw was unhinged, and its holes had widened at doubled. It’s mouth wasn’t bobbling, but somehow, you could tell. It was laughing. A horrible, disgusting, despicable kind of laugh. It was a wet, smoked laughter, that gargled and deepened in the corners of its own sound.  
“YOU ARE VERY BRAVE SMALL ONE, BUT VERY, VERY FOOLISH.” The words made Ralsei’s heart drop, but he found himself to be filled with more confusion and embarrassment than fear.

“Why? What are you saying?” Ralsei sputtered, beginning to properly pull himself to his feet and move himself backwards, trying to put a proper distance between himself and the horrible monster.

“YOU’RE JUST A FIGMENT OF YOUR OWN SELF IMPRINT, NOTHING YOU BELIEVE YOURSELF TO BE WILL CONCUR.” The creature began to rise into a further height, it’s bones snapping and muscles popping in order to raise itself higher and higher to tower over Ralsei. It let it’s jaw unhinge, like a snake. “AND YOUR TIME IS COMING TO A CLOSE.” It lunged towards Ralsei, who could do nothing but turn around, and fall through the linoleum flooring.

.

.

.

The dark prince awoke with a start, practically launching himself out of the ratty wooden throne. His green robes tangled around the softness of his fur, practically weighing him down against the floor. He stared around, pushing and shoving his cape back over his face, his breathing shattering and shaking the inside of his throat. His eyes were wide and filled with fear, the dilation of them taking a moment to adjust to the vision around himself.  
He was back in the throne room, the horrible creature had disappeared. He let himself flop against the floor to release ragged, tired breaths, needing to ponder. What had just happened? Who was that creature?

How had he even woken up from that horrible nightmare?

While the first two questions went unanswered, the third one would come to suffice. A small, almost nervous knock sounded at the front of the castle, followed by a louder, more aggressive one. The knocks itself stuttered and hesitated against one another's actions.

The dream was quickly forgotten.


End file.
